McCain reintroduced in night of testimonials

The improbable presumptive nominee of a Republican Party that has not always welcomed him was feted Tuesday night as a steady reformer and as the man for this moment.

It was the opening salvo of a Republican National Convention that has been truncated by Hurricane Gustav.

This night of McCain testimonials was attended by two-dozen of McCain's fellow Vietnam POWs and bookended with historical oddity.

Republican President George W. Bush appeared via video, but the evening ended with a McCain endorsement from Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democrats' vice presidential nominee in a bitter 2000 election loss to Bush. Lieberman is now an independent from Connecticut.

Bush, who was received respectfully by Republican delegates, called McCain “an independent man who thinks for himself.” Lieberman said his longtime friend McCain was “the best choice to bring our country together.”

After a day of Gustav-related nonpartisanship on Monday, Republicans interspersed criticism of Democratic nominee Barack Obama. Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson called Obama “the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee to ever to run for president,” and equally sharp critiques are likely ahead during the convention's final two nights from the Xcel Energy Center.

But Tuesday night was largely a hero's welcome for the 72-year-old McCain, the Arizona senator who spent more than five years in captivity in Hanoi during the Vietnam War.

“This is the kind of character that civilizations from the beginning of our history have sought in their leaders,” said Thompson, who ran against McCain in the GOP primaries. “Strength. Courage. Humility. Wisdom. Duty. Honor. It's pretty clear there are two questions we will never have to ask ourselves, Who is this man?' and, Can we trust this man with the presidency?'”

Despite the praise, Republicans have a daunting task in rallying around the familiar McCain figure.

Voters tell pollsters they want change, and excitement has built around Obama's historic candidacy as the first black nominee of a major party. McCain has been in Congress for more than two decades, and Democrats are trying to paint him as a Bush clone.

But McCain has long embraced the maverick by butting heads with Republicans on everything from Bush's tax cuts, which he now wants to make permanent, to campaign reform. He claims to be a political kin to the late President Theodore Roosevelt, who famously broke from his party to run as a Bull Moose candidate in 1912. Still, Republicans celebrated Roosevelt with a video.

Some think McCain's choice of 44-year-old Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate could energize cultural conservatives and provide much-needed generational appeal, but questions linger about her preparedness. Still McCain has hung tough in national polls despite a political climate hostile to Bush and the Republican Party.

In his acceptance speech in Denver last week, Obama praised McCain as a war hero and public servant, but he also said his Republican rival was out of touch with average Americans today.
“It's not because John McCain doesn't care,” Obama said. “It's because John McCain doesn't get it.”

Republicans counter that McCain gets the most fundamental issue of these times: protecting the nation against future terrorist attacks.

Bush was speaking remotely from the White House instead of here because of Gustav, meaning a president saddled with prolonged low job-approval will not attend the last convention of his presidency.

Bush said McCain's life challenges had prepared him to face tough decisions.

“We live in a dangerous world,” Bush said. “And we need a president who understands the lessons of Sept. 11, 2001: that to protect America, we must stay on the offense, stop attacks before they happen, and not wait to be hit again. The man we need is John McCain.”

Lieberman was re-elected to the Senate as an independent in 2006 but still caucuses with Democrats in the Senate.

He answered the obvious question of why he was appearing at a GOP convention.

“I'm here to support John McCain,” he said, “because country matters more than party.”